Natalie had just had her second appointment with the therapist she had begun seeing and the woman had suggested that perhaps Michael’s stepfather had forced Michael to perform the act on him. Then she had suggested something that had never crossed Natalie’s mind—with her sharing his abuser’s Trinidadian heritage, Michael had possibly abused her as a means of revenge. Natalie had cried again for the little boy whose innocence may have been so cruelly destroyed, but the therapist had warned her about feeling too sorry for Michael, reminding her that he had sensed her weakness and exploited it.
Michael had blamed the steroids for his violence and begged her to let him come over and apologize in person. She hadn’t even been tempted to give him her new address, remembering her mother saying that substance abuse didn’t change what people were fundamentally. A friend of her mother’s had once gotten drunk and said some unforgivable things to her mother. She’d apologized the next day, saying that she’d been drunk and not aware of what she was saying. Natalie’s mother had accepted her apology, but had later told Natalie that she would find it difficult to be as close to the woman as she once was. She had said that the alcohol hadn’t put words into the woman’s mouth—it had simply reduced her inability to conceal her true thoughts and feelings.
The new humility in Michael’s voice had amazed her, but Natalie had known that it was simply a ploy to get close to her again. When he’d realized that she wasn’t going to be persuaded to become his victim again, he had dropped the ‘Mr. Nice Guy’ act and become verbally abusive. She’d let him rant and rave, then yawned loudly and asked him if he was done and disconnected the call. When she put the phone on silent and ignored his next twenty or so calls, he’d started sending her text after text: pleading with her to let him come over to see her in one message, then threatening grievous bodily harm if he ever saw her again in the next.
After a week of calls and more texts than she could count, she’d answered his call early one Saturday morning and told him calmly not to call or text her again. She’d told him that she had saved all his texts and would pass them to the police if he persisted. She then suggested that he see a therapist, saying that being a victim didn’t give him the right to victimize anyone else.
He’d called her, “a cold, unfeeling bitch” and hung up.
He’d never called her again.
It had been a unpleasant reminder of a period in her life she’d wanted to forget, but it had made her finally see Michael for what he was—a victim, but also a weak man who was looking for someone weaker to victimize so that he could feel good about himself.
***
Deciding with her head that she would accept a non-exclusive relationship with Stephano was easy, convincing her heart that something was better than nothing was much more difficult. And Natalie couldn’t help but wonder if he had been relieved when she’d said that she didn’t want to take the relationship any further—he hadn’t attempted to persuade her otherwise and they had returned to just being work colleagues. But the companionable friendship they had enjoyed was now ruined. And though Natalie made an effort to forget the heated passion they’d shared, memories assailed her as soon as she walked into the office, and got even stronger when she was seated at her desk.
She hadn’t looked for to a Valentine’s Day since Michael. This year was no different.
Stephano came to work, issued his usual morning greeting and settled behind his desk without acknowledging the significance of the day in any way. Natalie was relieved that she had a lunchtime meeting with a client, so she wouldn’t be there for him to not ask her out to lunch. The meeting was likely to extend to late afternoon based on previous meetings, so she would avoid seeing Stephano for most of the day.
When she arrived back at the office at quarter to four, she found a single, perfect red rose in a slender glass vase and a monstrously large box with the Hotel Chocolat logo on her desk.
She tried not to smile too broadly, but she couldn’t help herself grinning like a fool as she looked over at Stephano and mouthed, “Thank you.”
It was totally over the top.
She had fallen in love with the luxury chocolate range on her first trip to the new Westfield Shopping Centre in Stratford when she’d wandered into the shop and been offered a sample. She had immediately treated herself to their Dark Signature Collection.
On her twenty-fifth birthday less than a month ago, she had brought the larger Classic Signature Collection to the office to share. She had ended up eating most of it herself over the next days as the guys had each taken one or two and then forgotten about them.